Funiu Mountain and Tongbai Mountain are steep and dangerous mountains that stretch for hundreds of miles, and together with the east vein of the Qinling Mountains, they surround the Nanyang Basin. In the north of the Nanyang Basin, the east foot of Funiu Mountain and the west foot of Tongbai Mountain stand together, and the middle mountain subsides, forming a trumpet-shaped trench that is narrow in the northeast and wide in the southwest, and is called Fangcheng Pass. The width of the pass varies from east to west from about 20 to 30 li, and the width from north to south is about 40 li, and there are lofty mountains on both sides.

Fangcheng is located in the inner side of the pass, according to the southeast foot of Funiu Mountain, the remaining vein Fangcheng Mountain is built, it is the only way to go south to Jingxiang and go north to the Central Plains, so it is called the nine stops of the world with the passes such as Juyong and Yanmen.

Because it is the main road to Jingxiang in the south and the Central Plains in the north, the vehicles and ships meet, and under the stone cliffs on both sides of the pass, many historical cultural relics are left. When Liang Chengchong and Yuan Guizheng accompanied Yue Lengqiu to cross the cliff of Fogou, they were in no mood to see the carvings on the stone cliff and the inscriptions of the literati of the past dynasties.

Further north, there is the site of the side wall left by the Chu State during the Warring States Period, which stands among the hills despite thousands of years of weathering.

After Liang Cheng rushed to Nanyang, he stationed heavy troops in Fangcheng to guard against the enemy in the north.

However, the wall city of Fangcheng and the outer moat are only more than two miles wide, and between the mountains to the west of Fangcheng Mountain, there is still a passage that can be passed in a roundabout way, which is not enough to completely seal the pass and protect the Nanyang Basin inside. Liang Chengchong made use of the old site of the side wall of the old Chu, standing wood as a fence, rammed earth plate building, and renovated the side wall of this square city more than 30 miles long.

Yue Lengqiu climbed the fortress built on the cliff of Fogou and looked at the hills and plains in the eastern pass. The side wall is built according to the topography, embedded with a strong fortress in the steep place, and connected with the Fangcheng fortress on the west side of the pass, connected as a whole, like a swimming dragon.

At another time, Yue Lengqiu would praise Liang Chengchong for being able to restore the Fangcheng Pass in just two or three years, but he was about to face the impact of hundreds of thousands of Yanhu soldiers and horses, and the side walls of Fangcheng looked so simple and thin.

If the Wuyang and other fortresses on the periphery can't hold it, it will not be easy for a large number of Yanhu soldiers and horses to rush to the front, and it will not be easy for the Nanyang soldiers and horses to rely on the side wall to hold on for a long time.

In addition to the more than 10,000 garrisons in Wuguan, Danfeng County, Baiyang Pass and other places in the west, Nanyang also had to deploy heavy troops in the lower reaches of the Huaihe River and Xinye City to prevent Luo Xiancheng's soldiers and horses in Xiangfan in the south.

In addition to leaving thousands of reserve soldiers and horses in Nanyang, Liang Chengyi's troops deployed in Fangcheng and the surrounding Wuyang and other bases were even less than 16,000 people.

In addition to the partial division led by Chen Zhihu to contain Huaixi on the left flank, Yanhu can directly add up to 100,000 troops in Wuyang and Fangcheng.

Even if the fortress can be relied on, and the defenders of Fangcheng and Wuyang are not the soldiers of Huaidong, if you want to resist 100,000 Yanhu soldiers with 16,000 people, it is difficult to have confidence when you think about it.

Although Yue Lengqiu was worried in his heart, his face did not show a worried color, but he said to Liang Chengchong, Yuan Guizheng and others beside him with an excited expression: "Before I came to Nanyang, I was very worried in my heart, worried that the Yan soldiers would be unstoppable. The privy envoys also gathered tens of thousands of elites in Luzhou, and thousands of soldiers stepped up the repair of post roads in Xinyang to help the roads; And Lord Dong also personally led his soldiers and horses to cross the Huai River to fight. I wanted to meet with Master Dong and come to Nanyang again, but Master Dong took the lead, and with 100,000 soldiers under his command, he did not hesitate to fight with the enemy soldiers at risk, suffered a small injury, and recuperated in Wuyang, but I couldn't bear to come to Nanyang first......"

People were in the rising water, and when they saw the straw floating, they were also delusional and happy, Yue Lengqiu's words made Liang Chengchong and the others look uplifted, and they felt that many of their previous worries were superfluous.

Only Yuan Guizheng was worried, and asked Yue Lengqiu: "Yan Hu canonized Yuan Lishan and Chen Zhihu as pseudo-kings, can Yue Du know?" ”

The Yuan dynasty has been established for more than 200 years, and only the Cao family is a special case for those with different surnames, and when the Liang family is in power, it is only the prince of the country. And Yan Hu chose this time to seal Yuan Lishan and Chen Zhihu as kings with different surnames, which was tantamount to being given to the rebels such as Hao Wenzhuang and Luo Xiancheng.

Now Nanyang is in the west and north, and it seems that it is still somewhat defensive, but in the south, only Xinye Castle stands in the lower reaches of the Huai River, with thousands of soldiers and horses stationed.

If the remnants of the luxury family or Luo Xiancheng go out and use tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to bypass Xinye and directly enter the heart of the Nanyang Basin, how should they be treated?

In particular, from Suizhou through Tongbai Mountain, there is a direct attack on Xinyang, and then the passage from the northwest foot of Huai to aid Nanyang will be cut off.

Before Yue Lengqiu went north, he believed that Lin Jian would not die in Nanyang, but after arriving in Huaixi, this confidence began to waver, and after arriving in Nanyang, this confidence almost collapsed.

Yue Lengqiu didn't care what he thought in his heart, but his face was silent, and he said lightly: "Yuan Lishan and Chen Zhihu don't remember the kindness of the court, and they recognize the thief as their father and act as a tiger, and sooner or later they will kill themselves." Whether it is a king or not, it is just a blink of an eye, and there is no need to pay attention to it. ”

Yuan Guizheng motioned for everyone else to stop, and he and Liang Chengchong accompanied Yue Lengqiu to continue walking forward for a while, and said in a suppressed voice: "Even if Jinghu and Huaidi are lost, Chongguo Gong can still row the river and rule, Yue Duzhen is not worried, Huaixi Zhen firmly believes that Huaidong reinforcements will definitely send troops from Luzhou?" ”

Yue Lengqiu glanced at Yuan Guizheng and said secretly: Liang Chengchong may have martial arts, and Yuan Guizheng is deep in the city, could it be that he fought hard but lost Nanyang, and also kept a remnant of the army for the Queen Mother?

"Hou Ye is too worried, Chongguo Gong is so attentive to Xuzhou, how can he easily discard the land in Jiangbei?" Yue Lengqiu said.

"But Chongguo Gong also runs Luzhou with heart," Yuan Guizheng said, "even if Jinghu falls and the east of Huaishan Mountain can still be supported by Luzhou, so that the situation in Huaixi will not collapse immediately." Now that Chongguo Gong has taken the land south of the Yangtze River in his pocket, instead of throwing 100,000 elites from Huaidong into Nanyang to take risks, it is better to borrow a knife to cut off dissidents, and then calmly clean up the rivers and mountains. ”

Yue Lengqiu sighed secretly in his heart, Yuan Guizheng was decisive and could see it more thoroughly.

After the fall of Nanyang, the remnants of the luxury family and Luo Xiancheng will join Yanhu, so that Yanhu's troops on the western front suddenly increased to nearly 400,000, and this situation will of course be very unfavorable to Huaidong.

However, even if the Yanhu army entered Nanyang, Xianghan and other places, at the northern foot of the Huaishan Mountains and in the upper reaches of the Huai River, there was Dong Yuan who barely maintained the situation in Huaixi, and before the Han River, in Jingzhou, there was Hu Wenmu's hard support, and Huaidong could calmly integrate the resources of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and other Jiangnan regions as long as they held the two key points of Jiangzhou and Luzhou on the western front.

Jiangnan has jurisdiction over hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of millions, and with the governance and infiltration ability of Lin Bind, for two or three years, there will be no worries about the elite who will not be able to compete with Yanhu on the Western Front.

The further this situation goes, the weaker Huaixi and Jinghu will be, and the stronger Huaidong will be - as long as Yanhu can't capture Jingzhou and Huaixi in one go, it will be a foregone conclusion that Lin Tie will stand on behalf of the Yuan clan, even if the Huaidong and Xusi regions will become remnants of land due to war, but for Lin Tie, at least he can make a fortune and make a row.

Is this really the idea that Lin Jian is fighting?

Yue Lengqiu thought silently in his heart.

No matter what, even if Nanyang really regarded Lin Jian as an abandoned son as Yuan Guizheng had guessed, Yue Lengqiu knew that this situation was also something he could recover.

Yue Lengqiu thought so in his heart, but said on his lips: "Master Hou, you are too worried, if Nanyang is lost, the luxury family, that is, the Changle bandits, will inevitably descend to Yan, how can Chongguo Gong sit and watch Yan Hu become a force on the Western Front?" He smiled again and said, "I went to Nanyang today to see it, and I will go back to Shouzhou and Luzhou tomorrow, and urge the grain, grass, soldiers and horses to continue to send to Nanyang, so that the worries in the heart of the Hou Ye can be sent ......as soon as possible."

What kind of character is Yuan Guizheng, how could he send Yue Lengqiu away with a word, and Yue Lengqiu's mentality of being anxious to leave Nanyang made him more and more worried.

At this time, a group of horsemen galloped from the north, killing the villagers who had not had time to avoid the fortress. A dozen horsemen gathered and scattered on both sides of the upper reaches of the Huai River, ransacking villages, chasing and fleeing.

Clusters of bloody stains are like blooming flowers on the dry and cracked earth.

In the north of Fangcheng, although Wuyang City still stands at the northern foot of Tongbai Mountain, it is the support of the periphery of Fangcheng Pass. However, since three days ago, the vanguard of Yanhu's 5,000-foot cavalry crossed the Shahe River and forced, and the Wuyang garrison was blocked in the city and could not fight, so that the Yanhu outpost cavalry could boldly and directly intersperse the front of the side wall of Fangcheng to provoke, and between Fangcheng and Wuyang, some villages that did not withdraw to the south in time suffered a catastrophe.

Liang Chengchong, Yuan Guizheng, and Yue Lengqiu all turned a blind eye to the killing outside the border walls.

***************

The Huai River traverses the Nanyang Basin, runs south from Xinye, and joins the Han River through Fancheng East.

Fancheng and Xiangyang stand between the Han River, and are called Xiangfan.

Xinye, the southern gateway of Nanyang, is only 100 miles away from Fancheng, and there is a river in the middle, and there are no mountains and high ridges on the terrain.

On the one hand, Luo Xiancheng was interested in running Suizhou, and on the other hand, he was also weakening the hostility of Nanyang and Jinghu, and there were not many troops stationed in Xiangfan. Although the Changle Army had nearly 80,000 soldiers, most of them were concentrated in Suizhou, and there were only more than 10,000 troops stationed in Xiangfan, and there was no sign of increasing troops to this side at this time. Therefore, the defensive situation in Xinye, which is called Nanyang, is also relatively relaxed, and some people in Nanyang think that Luo Xiancheng does not have the courage to cooperate with Yanhu to attack Nanyang.

Yan Hu's secret envoy has entered Fancheng, Luo Xiancheng also quietly entered Fancheng yesterday, in addition to Wei Zhang, Hu Zongguo, Ma Zhen accompanied, only more than 100 horsemen escorted them into the city, so that Nanyang's secret spies in Fancheng were unaware.

After the Cao family abandoned Guanzhong, although Nanyang had a heavy army stationed in Wuguan, the Danjiang River and many rivers west of the Danjiang River originating in the depths of the Qinling Mountains are all tributaries of the upper reaches of the Han River, so that from the south of Chang'an or the territory of Shangzhou Mansion, there are many dangerous trails that can bypass Danfeng County and Wuguan and communicate directly with Xiangfan. Although it is difficult for a large group of soldiers and horses to pass, it is not difficult for thirty or fifty people to pass, and it can become a channel connecting Guanzhong and Jinghu.

Yanhu's secret envoy Nahe Azig is the younger brother of Nahe, the favorite concubine of Yan's lord Yezier, and also the cavalry commander of Yanhu's soldiers and horses stationed in Chang'an.

When Shangzhou attacked Danfeng County and Wuguan, the mountains and ridges along the way were steep, and they could only be attacked by foot soldiers, and the cavalry was not of much use. Northern Yan lacked envoys who were familiar with the luxury family, and Azig had contact with the luxury family when he was on an envoy to Goryeo with Nahe Xiongqi in his early years.

The deputy envoy who came to Fancheng with Azig was Shen Zhi, the former Jihe Zhixian County, who was ordered to send an envoy to Suizhou to say that Luo was dedicated to Xuzhou, and this time he was naturally selected to send an envoy to Fancheng.

Azig came over this time, and the Yan Ting edict he carried with him, in addition to canonizing Haowenzhuang as the king of Linjiang, also canonized Luo Xian as the king of Xiangyang, on the condition that Luo Xiancheng let Xiangfan out, so that the soldiers and horses of the luxury family could go north along the Han River to attack Nanyang, and the soldiers and horses of Suizhou sent troops from the middle of Tongbai Mountain to attack Xinyang in the north.

Although the remnants of the luxury family have to guard against the Chizhou army and the Jinghu army from copying their back roads, the luxury family controls the Han River, and can quickly transfer 30,000 elites to the north, and it will be very convenient to have Xiangfan as a foothold and send troops to the north to raid Xinye.

Once Xinye is captured, the gateway to the south of the Nanyang Basin will suddenly be opened, and the defenders of its northern and western lines will be divided.

At this time, even if the Huaidong soldiers and horses came to the aid of Xinyang and Nanyang from Luzhou along the northern foot of the Huaishan Mountain, it would be impossible to gain a strategic advantage.